Wiley remains defiantly antisemitic: 'I'm right, Jews do run the earth'
Wiley insisted that his bans from social media - far from chastising him - would only serve to further his message.
By DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDSBritish rapper Wiley(photo credit: LOOKWHOITIS/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
British rapper Wiley has doubled down on his recent antisemitic comments, insisting, "I'm right. I'm right. The Jewish community do [...] run the Earth."Last month UK police launched an investigation into the rapper, whose real name is Richard Kylea Cowie Jr., after he took to Twitter to post: “If you work for a company owned by 2 Jewish men and you challenge the Jewish community in anyway of course you will get fired.” In a follow-up Tweet he added: “Infact [sic] there are 2 sets of people who nobody has really wanted to challenge #Jewish & #KKK but being in business for 20 years you start to undestand [sic] why.”Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube responded by removing his official accounts from their sites.But speaking to the 1 Po show on YouTube, Wiley again insisted that there is enmity between Jews and Black people, the latter being oppressed by the former."I’m right. I’m right. The Jewish community do own a lot of s*** on this planet, and they do, with other societies, run the Earth. They own everything," he said. "I’m not antisemitic if I say the Jewish community’s very powerful, they own this, they own that – I’m not wrong. I’m not wrong. If I say there's Sheikhs who own a lot of oil - am I wrong?“A lot of what I’m going on about is institutional, deep-rooted, systemic, it’s in-place anyway… I’ve never had a problem with anyone in business other than with some of the Jewish community that I’ve worked with,” he added. “The Jewish community does stick together.”In an attempt to bolster his viewpoint, he referenced a 2018 incident in which Israel's Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef likened Black people to monkeys and used the word 'kushi,' which is used in the Talmud but in modern Hebrew is a pejorative. Yosef was investigated by the Justice Ministry over whether the comments constituted a criminal incitement to racism, and the Anti-Defamation League, among others, sharply criticized the Rabbi, calling his comments "utterly unacceptable."But Wiley argued that the rabbi had received preferential treatment by the social media platforms.“People had a problem with what I said the other day," he said, "and I felt they’re going to shut down this and this and this, but before even that I was on the ‘net and I saw the chief rabbi compare black people to monkeys. They didn’t take down his Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. When I saw that I learned something – you can’t make somebody care about your history more than they care about their own.”During the course of the 34-minute interview, he insisted that the removal of his accounts was an act of racism against him as a Black person, perpetrated by Jews.
“Twitter, shut down – who owns Twitter, do you reckon? Instagram, shut down – who owns Instagram, do you reckon? Facebook – shut down – we all know who owns Facebook. YouTube, Google, who owns that do you reckon? That’s the first lot of people who have shown who they are."However, he remained defiant, insisting that the bans - far from chastising him - would only serve to further his message.“My thing was just to show my people, you know what, you know that unfair world? It really does exist. And once I say this, they’re going to try to shut me down, but in spirit, in life, ka-boom, I’m just going to get bigger. It’s been like that for time. It’s systemic. It needs to change. We all need to come together instead of throwing ourselves to them. They chew you up and spit you back out again.”The video was published to YouTube channel FilthyFellas on Friday, who explained their rationale for hosting him in the video's description. "Wiley is an important person. He is the Godfather. He had a vision for music made by black people in Britain and he forged a path for so many people of all colours and backgrounds to create great art, make a living and really impact the world," they wrote."He is not without his faults and 1 PO SHOW and FilthyFellas will acknowledge them. In our opinion recent tirade was wrong and poorly considered and very dangerous. There is more to him than those Tweets though and we wanted to make sure we gave him the opportunity to clear-up as much of the mess has been left behind as possible."They added: "We love Wiley. He means a lot to us. We do not condone prejudice in any form."
